Who guides our fate? And can we ever hope to wrest control for ourselves? In this novella, "The Loom of Thessaly" , classical mythology merges with impudent modern spirit into a science fiction legend that speculates upon the nature of reality.

    with a peculiar talent.After years of destitution, Adam Eden's life is finally on the up. But, whilst out celebrating his recent good fortune, Adam unwittingly chooses death over embarrassment.Awaking in a future of leisure, luxury, and immortality, Adam suffers serious shrinkage and is branded an 'undesirable'. Shunned by family and neighbours for his first-life sins, can he find respect and redemption in this tightly controlled world? Facing a grim eternity, Adam wants out.A randomly chosen day trip changes everything.Though cruel and heartless, they always let you choose your weapon.

    Gabriel Kane goes from a struggling architect to one of the most powerful men in the world; Armonía Solorsano -- a young Hispanic girl who grew up in a dilapidated suburban McMansion-turned-tenement -- invents one of the most important and influential pieces of technology in history; a non-profit organization goes from a charity to a decentralized domestic terrorist group; and the greatest democracy in the world finds itself falling into the ever-tightening grip of a dictator.As five people come together with the shared goal of changing the world, they discover that their approaches are fundamentally and irreconcilably at odds. Their partnership becomes a bitter political and high-tech rivalry from which only one of them can emerge.This novella by Christian Cantrell (about 16,000 words) portrays an intersection of politics and technology which is both extremely relevant, and frighteningly feasible.

    Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge.

    Joe McAllister is a reluctant mercenary who's looking for a way out and family-friendly place to start a business and raise an orphaned boy. Will the choices they make in the next few months shape the rest of their lives, or is free will just an illusion in a galaxy managed by ancient artificial intelligence? Destiny: Union Station takes place two years before the start of the nineteen book EarthCent Ambassador series.

    She didn't want to be beautiful. And she wasted time doing mad things--like eating and sleeping...This story was the basis for a classic episode of "The Twilight Zone" TV show!

    Keener senses, heightened awareness and an enhanced physical strength that could be called upon by his sheer will. Erik becomes involved with a team of high profile investigators and local police trying to locate a girl who was kidnapped in the middle of a playground amongst dozens of adults and children. None of the adults saw anything and what the children claim to have seen is too far fetched to be believed. The search evolves into a full-scale manhunt into the dark and desolate woodlands of the Hopedale Mountain. After a lethal encounter and a fatality, Erik, the investigators and police realize that what they're dealing with isn't a man and possibly isn't of this world. What they're dealing with is a sentient evil that has an appetite for young children.

    But when a terrified woman falls through his bathroom ceiling, he's forced back into a life of gunfights, double agents and paranormal research. The secret he's been keeping for nearly four decades might reunite him with his lost love, or kill millions.This new short story by John August falls into the genre of paranoid "spy-fi" popularized by writers like Jorge Luis Borges and shows like The Prisoner and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.== What Others Say =="I really dug the story. Gave it a glance just to see, got totally hooked, and blazed on through to the end."-- Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union) "The Variant" is both a good, fun, smart story and an interesting experiment in indie self-publishing for fiction."-- John Gruber, daringfireball.net== About the Author ==An excerpt of The Variant is available at johnaugust.com/variant About the AuthorJohn August is the screenwriter of eight feature films, including Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride. He wrote and directed the 2007 movie The Nines.He can be found on Twitter, @johnaugust

    Fiction by Hugo and Nebula award winners and nominees as well as talented newcomers. Stories were selected by the Unidentified Funny Objects series curator Alex Shvartsman.

    Voracious and relentlessly, the Creednax consume everything in their path, including people, planets and themselves if necessary. Only the Rose of the Dawn has the smallest chance of stopping them — if the abducted captain and shanghaied crew can figure out how to run the alien ship in time. Unfortunately, time is the one thing they don’t have.

    But she has a secret of her own; she's a computer telepath who can connect to the grid without hardware.It’s a talent she needs when she arrives at the drop point to make the delivery and is ambushed by heavily armed goons, barely escaping with her life. Now, caught in the crosshairs of feuding lords, unrelenting security forces, and dangerous outlaws, she’ll need some help to make it out alive. Enter a pair of unlikely allies also caught in the mix: charming, down-on-his-luck pilot Hank Jensen and jaded PI Mike Chandler. Their mission: take down the ruthless pirate who is bringing the galaxy to its knees with his bloody hijackings of corporate trade routes.Unfolding at a break-neck pace, Pirates of the Outrigger Rift is the rollicking new sci-fi adventure of corporate espionage and interstellar piracy.

     1. HOPEBREAKER In the world of Altadas, there are no more human births. The Regime is replacing the unborn with demons, while the Resistance is trying to destroy a drug called Hope that the demons need to survive. Between these two warring factions lies Jacob, a man who profits from smuggling contraceptive amulets into the city of Blackout. He cares little about the Great Iron War, but a chance capture, and an even more accidental rescue, embroils him in a plot to starve the Regime from power. When Hope is an enemy, Jacob finds it harder than he thought to remain indifferent. When the Resistance opts to field its experimental landship, the Hopebreaker, the world may find that one victory does not win a war. 2. LIFEMAKER The Regime is on the hunt, forcing the Resistance to take refuge aboard the Lifemaker, an advanced submarine that houses a special cargo: a handful of women who can still give birth to human children. To evade the Regime's own submersibles, all parties must work together, but tensions are high, and not everyone on board is looking out for the greater good. As they descend into the deeps, they quickly learn that not all monsters work for the Regime. 3. SKYSHAKER The Resistance takes to the clouds aboard the Skyshaker, the newly-completed airship aimed at dominating the heavens, when the land far below has become a hellish place ruled by demons. General Rommond fixes his attention on the city of Blackout, the old capital of the world, controlled by the Treasury, who are themselves controlled by the ruthless Regime. The skies above that city will no longer hide in smog; fire and fury will light up the sky. That centre of the old civilised world will either shift allegiance to the Resistance, or it will burn to the ground. Yet there are always others who will resist the attempted change of power. From sky pirates and mob bankers to the feared mechanical men of the Iron Guard, Jacob and his new family of freedom fighters will face greater challenges than they have ever faced before. As bombs drop from the sky like the iron tears of gods, there are other revelations that will shake the foundations of everyone struggling to save humanity.

    Jack encountered Gilbert Chesterton’s Father Brown tales a few years later and they ultimately became the prime influence in his science fiction. The issue with Father Brown was never a question of who committed the murder, but rather what in heaven’s name is going on here? Why does an astronaut, in “Cathedral,” sacrifice her life to collide with an asteroid that she knows poses no threat to the Earth? Why does a scientist who’s designed an actual working AI in “The Play’s the Thing,” hide what’s he’s done? How is it that the lives of two people working at Moonbase in “Blinker” depend on a quasar? In “Lucy,” Jack shows us why sending automated vehicles to explore the distant outposts of the solar system may not be a good idea. And in “Searching for Oz,” an alternate history story, how things might have been if SETI had gotten what it was looking for. He describes our reaction in “Listen Up, Nitwits,” when a voice begins speaking to us, apparently from Jupiter, in Greek. And in “The Lost Equation,” a Holmes adventure, we discover who really was first to arrive at e=mc2. Jack also provides two episodes, “Maiden Voyage” and “Waiting At the Altar,” from Priscilla Hutchins’ qualification flight; and an effort by a sixteen-year-old Alex Benedict, in the title story with his uncle Gabe and Chase Kolpath’s mom, Tori, who are trying to understand why a brilliant radio entertainer, lost in the stars when his drive unit suffered a malfunction, never said goodbye. These and fourteen other rides into odd places await the reader.

    The biggest game in town centers on a massive, deadly roller coaster that winds its way through the Strip’s most famous attractions. On the first Saturday of every month, twenty-four desperate passengers get strapped into the notorious ride and gamble with their lives in a twisted game of chance, to the thrill of webcast audiences worldwide. One of them will win, and one will die, but the other twenty-two will escape with nothing but their lives. Bets are placed as the ride begins, but in Vegas, the house always wins.The Ride by acclaimed author Aric Davis is a terrifying near-future vision of bloodlust-as-entertainment taken to a horrific extreme.

    Fools tampering with Einstein's laws of physics.Here are adventures that offer readers humanity at its best and worst.100% of royalties donated to Doctors Without Borders.